I watch a lot of people who swing really hard and end up with an outside in swing on the driving range, and I used to be one of them. I am just wondering why many players seems to this have this tendency?

Most of the time it's going to have to do with a lack of Key #2. Sometimes Key #1 needs to addressed first because the player will put themselves in a position on the backswing where it's really, really tough to perform a decent downswing.

Why is it a popular move? Most players aren't aware of how far forward the weight has to be or how it should feel. Using the ground is just starting to be a more emphasized piece in mainstream golf instruction. For years and years hip slide was a bad thing. So if golfers aren't aware then it makes sense that the golfer will try to "power" their swing by coming OTT. Just a pure unwinding of the upper body with the weight not moving forward.

The definition of OTT can also be kinda tricky. Most good players have the lead arm deeper at A3 than they do at A5, so there is a little "shift" out of the lead arm, mostly because you are less turned at A5 than you are at A3. I tend to see OTT as an extreme shift out where the lead arm lacks depth and /or the club head is outside the hands at A6.

A ,former, 40 year OTT golfer here and from my point of view the basic mental cause of OTT is the idea is that the golf swing is an 'arm motion'. When a beginner golfer looks at a skilled golfer most likely the beginner sees lots of fast moving arms and club shafts and club heads, glistening in the sun, and swooshing around smacking the ball. Golf is not natural nor intuitive. Who ever learned golf without seeing a skilled golfer? Who ever spoke a language without hearing it spoken first?

And we, most of us, do not have good mental and nervous connections to our lower body, like our hips, buttocks, feet, etc. Esp men, as youth, look in the mirror and see big chests, massive biceps, hulking shoulders and ham-like hands....all these speak to 'macho', which is what boys want. Our lower body is 'out-of-sight' and hard to connect with. As an aside, the lower body also houses the penis, which we better keep out of sight, or the adults will complain. So, when we take up golf we can't find our hips, the source of golf power, so we naturally hit the ball with the shoulders and arms and the hips remain static. . Result, OTT.

For me, it is what @mvmac stated and having my arms initiate the downswing. I work on this a lot. If I pull or have a pull draw, I know it was because I wasn't moving my weight forward enough at the start of the downswing. I will keep the weight forward thought going for the next practice swing or full swing.

That is the cool thing about the 5 Simple Keys and knowing the ball flight laws. It is easier to self diagnose what just went wrong and then correct it. Some days my body won't comply with my demands. But usually I can recover from a bad patch with what I have learned from the 5SKs.

Because golfers never get "inward" enough to swing "outward" long enough.

That's about as general as I can make it.

That describes me perfectly. I used to have a terrible slice. To fix it I had to learn to use my body a LOT more and my arms a LOT less. I remember how weird it felt when I started really swinging out to the ball. Initially it was due to a complete lack of understanding of how one should make a golf swing. These days if I slice one it's because I allowed my arms to take a bigger back swing than my body. Because I'm fat and slovenly my body tends to want to quit before my arms do.

Because golfers never get "inward" enough to swing "outward" long enough.

That's about as general as I can make it.

These two points hit the nail on the head. If you don't turn away (backswing) with your body, you don't get yourself set up to turn through on the downswing. I think there are a couple of issues why it is prevalent. It takes suppleness to fully and independently turn the upper and lower bodies, which is fine if you are learning the game young. However, if you don't pick it up until later in life, you can have a lot of work on your hands (no pun). The tendency is we use our hands and arms to make up for what our core isn't delivering. Even with kids, youth sports, right or wrong (probably mostly wrong) we tend to use a lot of arms rather than focusing on keeping the elbows in close to the body to maintain stability and leverage.

One golfer I know has developed back problems in the 4 years that I've known him. His path is always outside in and he hits a fade with every shot.

I was just wondering if the fact that his lower back has issues might be contributing to this issue, or if the fact that he swings this way leads to the back problems.

He's a great guy and has the potential to be a really strong golfer except for this problem. I would suggest that he sees @mvmac except for time constraints.

I dunno, with my back problems, which occurred long before I began playing golf is part of the reason I had, and still do if I don't focus on swinging from in to out, is a defensive move to keep my back from hurting. When I swing in to out, the movement stretches my lower back muscles and tends to create a "tight" feeling in my lower back, so as a result, the OTT is a natural move for me.

I have been working very hard to Stop that feeling, I have been stretching, adjusting my posture on a day to day basis, and going to a PT on top of taking meds to help relieve the pain. Also along with swinging properly, my swing has to be with a slow tempo, to keep from reverting to an OTT swing, also swinging to hard with an OTT swing can easily cause my back to Scream out in pain. Plus the fact that an OTT swing doesn't produce a shot that I want. Lihu, does your friend ever get into a reverse C position..?

"My hands are way up here, the clubhead is way back there, and the ball is way down there. I am fixin' to swing down and hit that thing and I better get this clubhead up and out of there so I can windmill it straight down to the ball." "Oh Hell I better hang back and cut across or I am going to drive this clubhead right into the ground." "Damn I almost fell backwards."

I dunno, with my back problems, which occurred long before I began playing golf is part of the reason I had, and still do if I don't focus on swinging from in to out, is a defensive move to keep my back from hurting. When I swing in to out, the movement stretches my lower back muscles and tends to create a "tight" feeling in my lower back, so as a result, the OTT is a natural move for me.

I have been working very hard to Stop that feeling, I have been stretching, adjusting my posture on a day to day basis, and going to a PT on top of taking meds to help relieve the pain. Also along with swinging properly, my swing has to be with a slow tempo, to keep from reverting to an OTT swing, also swinging to hard with an OTT swing can easily cause my back to Scream out in pain. Plus the fact that an OTT swing doesn't produce a shot that I want. Lihu, does your friend ever get into a reverse C position..?

Nope. I have disc degeneration, and bone spurs around that disc which affect the nerves. Bending over at the waist causes me the most discomfort. Yesterday wasn't a good day, lots of pain. I may have to rethink continuing with golf, unless the exercises my PT gave me start helping to relieve some of the pain. This is the reason why it's so hard to retain my spine angle all the way through a shot.

Nope. I have disc degeneration, and bone spurs around that disc which affect the nerves. Bending over at the waist causes me the most discomfort. Yesterday wasn't a good day, lots of pain. I may have to rethink continuing with golf, unless the exercises my PT gave me start helping to relieve some of the pain. This is the reason why it's so hard to retain my spine angle all the way through a shot.

I think his sciatic nerve pain is possibly caused by his swing.

He prided himself in being able to hit a 7 iron 180 yards, while I casually pulled a 5 iron.

Kind of hard to say anything to him without some backup data.

I guess I should just keep on improving, and when he asks me how I did it to tell him to go see @mvmac and Dana?

He prided himself in being able to hit a 7 iron 180 yards, while I casually pulled a 5 iron.

Kind of hard to say anything to him without some backup data.

I guess I should just keep on improving, and when he asks me how I did it to tell him to go see @mvmac and Dana?

Well, if you look at Louie O. Ernie Els with their slowish smooth swings, you realize it's not all about the speed (harder swing) but being syncd. When I hit my 9i over 150 yrds, it felt like I hardly swung, and the impact was a soft type of feeling. Erik or Mike are far better qualified to answer this, but in my case,good tempo and a Smooth swing yields better distance.

Don't fool yourself. It is all about the clubhead speed. And making good contact. Perfect contact, smooth slow swings resulting in a clubhead speed of 88 mph just won't cut it (on tour). Perfect synch enables high clubhead speeds. And Louis O and E. Els are both from South Africa.

But you are correct in that most of us 'need' slower speeds in order to make good ball contact. This because, IMO, we (the hackers of the world ) have an immature understanding of the function of the lower body and an inability to incorporate and synch the lower and upper parts.

Don't fool yourself. It is all about the clubhead speed. And making good contact. Perfect contact, smooth slow swings resulting in a clubhead speed of 88 mph just won't cut it (on tour). Perfect synch enables high clubhead speeds. And Louis O and E. Els are both from South Africa.

But you are correct in that most of us 'need' slower speeds in order to make good ball contact. This because, IMO, we (the hackers of the world ) have an immature understanding of the function of the lower body and an inability to incorporate and synch the lower and upper parts.

Fooling myself..?? Did you read what I said..? I said it's not All, about the speed, meaning there has to be good contact, ect..Then again, maybe I could have been more specific for you...

And yes, I know very well where Louie, and Ernie are from, in fact I recall when the big easy was a rookie..

As for us mere mortals trying to play golf, I'll take a slightly slower, smoother tempo any day. Even this old man with a bad back can still hit an 8i 145 on average, which is fine with me..